Character Sketch

Ponyboy Curtis

Ponyboy Curtis is a 14 year old boy who lives in a town/city Oklahoma where there are the richer Soc’s gang and the Greasers who are not as fortunate, Ponyboy is a greaser. Ponyboy has light-brown, almost red hair and greenish-grey eyes, and he’s small for 14 but has a good build. Ponyboy has longer hair than most boys squared off in the back and long at the front and on the sides. He is very strong in school as he has skipped a grade and still almost achieves straight A’s. He has a high IQ but does not have a high street-smart IQ as demonstrated in the beginning of the story. Ponyboy has a passion for reading and for movies an example of this is when Ponyboy and Johnnycake are reading Gone with the Wind and another example is at the beginning of the book when Ponyboy leaves a Paul Newman movie. Ponyboy has a dislike for boys with green eyes, the Soc’s and not so much but he doesn’t like as well Dallas Winston and Steve Randall. Ponyboy has feelings for everyone as he cares about everyone in the gang as they are a tight knit community. Sodapop and Darry both have more respect and love given to them by Ponyboy because they are brothers but Ponyboy runs away when Darry hits him later on in the story. Ponyboy feels Dallas is always up to no good thus disliking him but this isn’t the case later on throughout the story when Ponyboy learns more about Dallas these things change when Dallas assists them by telling the fuzz that Ponyboy and Johnny are in Texas and then locates them and then helps them by doing things such as buying them food helping them getaway. Johnnycake spends the most time with Ponyboy over the course of the novel Ponyboy feels that Johnnycake is like a brother and acts normally around him; he also doesn’t think Johnnycake was stupid he just liked to explore certain things a little more. Johnny has to have liked Ponyboy a lot to have killed a soc to save his life, Johnny has done lots of nice things for Ponyboy like doing the shopping and cutting and bleaching his hair even though it looked tuff. Ponyboy’s personality doesn’t change except for his now belief that some Soc’s weren’t evil an example was their undercover spy Cherry. I think Ponyboy is an interesting character and that he has many qualities that could allow him to fit into any social groups (by social groups I don’t mean Soc’s).

Biography

[edit]Early life

Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, on July 22, 1950.^[1]

She first began writing in her sophomore year at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa.

S. E. Hinton is most widely known as the author of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel. The book was inspired by two rival gangs in her high school, the Greasers and the Socs. The Outsiders was published by Viking in 1967, and it became the second-best-selling young-adult novel in publishing history, with more than 13^[3] million copies.^[4]

Hinton's publisher suggested she use her initials instead of her first name so that male reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female. She chose to continue using her initials, perhaps to better separate her public life from her private life.

[edit]After The Outsiders

Publicity and pressure led to three years of writer's block for the young author. Hinton's boyfriend was tired of her being depressed all the time, and suggested she write two pages a day. She did so, and completed That Was Then, This Is Now in the year of 1970. She married her boyfriend a few months later. That Was Then, This Is Now was published in 1971.^[5]

Hinton attended the University of Tulsa and earned her B.S. degree in 1970.^[6][7] In 1989 she was the first recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the ALA.^[8] The award recognizes an author whose work depicts the experiences and emotions of teenagers and is widely accepted by young people. In 1997 Hinton received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book.^[9]

After The Outsiders, her best-known book is Rumble Fish, which was originally published as a short story in the University of Tulsa literary journal Nimrod and later expanded into a novel. She also wrote Tex (1979) and Taming the Star Runner (1988).

Film adaptations of The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983), both directed by Francis Ford Coppola, established the careers of many film stars, such as Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, and Mickey Rourke. Also adapted to film were Tex (1982), directed by Tim Hunter, and That Was Then... This Is Now (1985), directed by Christopher Cain.

Hinton herself acted as a location scout, and she had cameo roles in three of the four films. She plays the nurse in Dally's room for The Outsiders. In Tex, she is one of the teachers. She appears as a prostitute propositioning Rusty James in Rumble Fish.

Hinton states that she is a private person who is not comfortable talking about her personal life. She has revealed, however, that she enjoys reading, and that horseback riding is her hobby.^[5]

She currently resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband, David Inhofe. Her son, Nick, has been away at college.^[2][5]

Journal #2

Point of view Or Mode of Narration

1. First Person

2. Second Person

3. Third Person

Journal #2 (post of your blog):

1. What point of view is your story told in?

1^st person

2. Is the point of view effective?

Yes as it told by a 14 year old gang member who has different qualities than most of the people he hangs out with. He comes from the rough side of town and is not expected to be smart but he skipped a grade in school. He is different than most greasers he’s in-between bad and good.

3. What is one of the most important/memorable events that have happened so far? Think about that moment and re-tell it from another point of view. For example, if you were reading We All Fall Down as your Literature Circles novel you may re-write from Will’s fathers Point of View(min. 300 words)

Me and Darry were walking home from the store. We heard someone screaming our names, it sounded like Pony. We saw a group of soc’s this could only mean the worst. I ran towards them and they immediately leapt off of Pony and ran towards their car and took off down the street. I ran over to Pony. “Are you all right?” I asked him

“Ya” he replied softly.

“They didn’t hurt you to bad did they?”

“No not that bad”

Right before i could finish my next question Darry went on a next level rant on how Pony should have brought some one else along with him when he goes to the movies even though nobody but me would

Discussion Director 2

1. Who do the soc’s from the blue mustang make pony think of?

2. Why does Cherry act weird once the fight is about to start?

3. What does Darry do to get Pony to run away?

4. What does Johnny carry in his backpocket?

5. Who does Johnny kill and why?

6. When they jump off the train where do they land?

st Journal Response

1. Describe the setting in the novel – Time, Place and Circumstance. Please use quotations to support your answer.

The time is the 1960’s but it is not mentioned yet in the book.

it is in Oklahoma as it tells you of all the rodeos and the way the dialogue is written. “If i don’t, ill come over and find y’all.”

The greasers are in a feud with the soc’s

“‘hey grease’ one of them said in an over-friendly voice ‘we’re gonna do you a favour greaser. We’re gonna cut all that long greasy hair off’

2. Which characters have you been introduced to so far? What are they like? Is there any conflict between characters?

Ponyboy – Booksmart, looks a little like Soda, isn’t street-smart, 14

Darry – Looks like the father, Tall and broad, works, 19

Soda – Handsome, tall and slim, dropout, 17

Johnny- Jumpy, Small, Abused at home

Two-bit – has comebacks ready, large, oldest mmber

Dally- Dangerous

3. Find a quotation that helps describe each of the characters you have been introduced to.

Soda- “Soda is handsomer than anyone else I know. Not like Darry- Soda’s movie-star kind of handsome.

Pony- “I make good grades and have high IQ and everything, but I don’t use my head.”

Darry –“It seems funny to me that he should look just like my father and act exactly the opposite

Johnny-“If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you’ll have Johnny.”

Two-bit- you couldn’t shut up that guy; he always had to get his two bits in.

Dally- “he had quite the reputation. They have a file on him down at the police station.”

Discussion Direction

1. Describe the main characters and their characteristics?

Ponyboy – Booksmart, looks a little like Soda, isn’t street-smart, 14

Darry – Looks like the father, Tall and broad, works, 19

Soda – Handsome, tall and slim, dropout, 17

2. Where is the setting? How does it relate to the story?

The story takes place in Oklahoma and it relates to the story as they are part of a 1950’s gang in Oklahoma.

3. What happens when the soc’s surround pony? Who saves the day?

They surround him and pin him down and they threaten to cut off his hair and beat him up. Soda saves the day by scaring them off.

4. Who is the gang’s pet/kid brother?

Johnny is the gangs kid brother and pet.

5. How are greasers treated in community?

They are treated like scum and hood.

Reviewed by Rubyjuby

A tale of disaffected youth, ‘the Outsiders’ is a poignant read, made all the more powerful by the age of its author, 17 year old S.E Hinton.

The novel tells the story of the rivalry between two gangs the Greasers and the Socs, as seen through the eyes of Ponyboy, a 13 year old Greaser. The two groups are distinguished simply by their backgrounds, with the Socs being the rich kids in town and the Greasers ‘the hoods’ or ‘JDs’ as they are known. As violence between the gangs escalates we discover that one thing which Ponyboy shares with a number of both friends and rivals is a desire to break away from a world where people are defined by their affiliations or backgrounds. We also learn that the violence of the gangs can be associated with either a lack of adult influence, in the case of the Greasers, or an excess of parental attention, as in the case of the Socs, which conjures up images of Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

‘The Outsiders’ is a must read, especially for those interested in novels with similar themes of the disaffection and violence of youth, such as ‘Brighton Rock’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

http://www.blogapenguinclassic.co.uk/site/pcReadReview.php5?review_id=50